Conjectures & confrontations

de Fox, Robin

This is the third in the series of volumes of essays that Robin Fox began with Reproduction and Succession and continued with The Challenge of Anthropology. Fox, who has been described as the "conscience of anthropology" continues to have the same aim: to expose readers in the social sciences and beyond to the "consequences of the biosocial orientation," and to assess the "state of the art" in anthropology in particular and the social sciences in general. As always he encompasses a wide range of topics: Why do bureaucracies fail? Are we really an innovative animal? Is nationalism a purely constructed phenomenon? What is the role of sexual competition in epic literature? In all these enquiries he tries to show in nontechnical language how the evolutionary approach throws new light on old problems - and even raises new and more interesting problems. Interwoven with these analyses are lively excerpts from interviews on his life and times in anthropology, culled from Current Anthropology, and a punishing criticism of political correctness on campus from an interview with Richard Heffner on his PBS program, "The Open Mind." The "confrontations" of the title in fact arise from his willingness to explore the moral and political consequences of his "biosocial orientation."